Claremont Middle School students hold placards calling for energy upgrades

Claremont Middle School, a small public school near the northern border of Oakland, spends $53,000 on energy bills each year, nearly $130 per child for its 405 students.

A few blocks down the road from Claremont, Oakland Technical High School, a much larger public school with 2,000 students, spends $122 per student each year, bringing the annual energy costs of both schools to $300,000.

Both schools spend more on energy bills than they spend on books and supplies, a situation Assemblymember Nancy Skinner (D-Berkeley) says is untenable in the current financial environment, in which California’s school districts are losing funding and shutting schools down.

“Thousands of teachers have received pink slips, and yet California schools are spending $1.1 billion each year on energy bills,” Skinner said, “We need to save our schools, make existing buildings better and put money back into the classroom.”